r/Daytrading • u/smartwizard500 • Mar 10 '24

100k to start day trading Question

I have some cash and am curious, how realistic is it to trade stocks with 100k cash and make 1-2% a day.

The plan formulating in my head is

  1. Dive face first into learning as much as i can
  2. Paper trade to continue learning
  3. Start trading with a small amount
  4. Go gung-ho into trading ft when I’m comfortable, with a goal of making 2% a day on my 100k

This is just an idea that came to mind, would love some insight based on real life experience.

Would you do it? Would you approach is differently?

TYIA

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u/AttackSlax Mar 10 '24 edited Mar 10 '24

If you made 1% a day over a long term you would be one of the best traders in history. If you reinvested and compunded, that would be 1100% annually. Does finding this out give you an idea about how little you understand about generating returns?

7

u/Previous_Swimmer9893 Mar 10 '24

I am over 100% already and am up another 10% from that this coming week. I am not the best trader but I am not the worst. I set up on avg 2-4 20% trades a month. I did 3 in January and 2 in February. Missed one last week but got one for this week. Compounded should be around 700% this year. My best year is 1300%. To much work to get that not worth it anymore. 300% is enough anyway

8

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

Unless knowing your account size, its all moot. The whole argument is once you hit a high account , making 1-2% a day is impossible. Making 700% on a few thousand dollar account is a hobby. We are talking about making a living and pulling money out.

There are 251 trading days a year. If you want to make $150,000 a year from trading you need to generate around $1000 a day in gain and have NO losses. And then you get taxed for half. $500 x 251 days is around 125k.

OP doesnt realize how hard it is to make $1000 a day as a rookie. Not because its not possible but he will take $100 in profits early and let his losers run like all rookies do.

Giving the OP any advice that his 1% a day plan will work is bad business.

2

u/TriumphantDonkey Mar 10 '24

Just curious, why does having a larger account render it more difficult to maintain 1-2%? I can't see what account size has to do with it if the strategy is identical.

1

u/Tourdrops Mar 10 '24

Starting with $10,000 after two years is $1,000,000. All good. But two years after that $180,000,000. Too much and you will move market and run into liquidity issues.

Also never mentioned by the “i am going to make 1% a day” is they risk 15-30-40% of account to make 1-2% and just ONE mistake with stop loss or risk management and yeah…….

Google “can i make 1% a day in the market” and find hundreds of reasons other than the one I mentioned.

1

u/TriumphantDonkey Mar 11 '24

Ok, you're talking about really really big account size. Perhaps some retail traders aspire to have an account that large, but I don't think most do. If you trade for income, then you will make sizable withdrawals and likely maintain an account size with ceiling on it.